I cannot decide bet. USC & CAL

<p>My family efc is 0, which probably means that both Berkeley and USC will be providing me near full scholarships. I will definitely be living on campus</p>

<p>I visited USC for 5 hours last Friday after a three day visit to Berkeley.</p>

<p>I have tons of friends in Berkeley who showed me around, took me out to eat, and introduced me to a bunch of super nice people. Everybody I have met in Berkeley is super friendly and helpful. A group of students stayed with me till 2 AM, basically persuading me to attend Berkeley for its Industrial Engineering and Operations Research program. The only thing that I did not like about Berkeley is the professors. They have so many student and it seems like they do not care about their undergrads at all. Unlike professors from other UCs, these professors' attitude and motivation were extremely poor, at least in my opinion. I am sure Berkeley has every type of students and staff members. However, I felt good at Berkeley, I felt like I belonged there with all the other Asian kids. I didn't dare to approach the athletes because they seemed intimidating.</p>

<p>Now when I visited USC, BY MYSELF!!! :'(, I also fell in love with the campus. I felt inferior because the majority of the student body is white and A&F beautiful. As a short and skinny Asian, I was scared to look at people in the face. I love the SoCal weather and the alumni Trojan thing that they have going on. If USC is such a wonderful school, why is its ranking so low compared to other universities? I am really searching for a place where I can fit in and get a more personalized and individualized education, which is something Berkeley cannot provide. I do not even know if USC has Operations Research. Something about USC just stood out to me. Unfortunately, I am admitted for Spring 2010... Would my Cal Grant still work though? Anyways, I guess I have to get out of my comfort zone since I live in a community largely populated by Asians. In the end, I think the education part is more important. Correct me if I am wrong, but are Berkeley kids in general nicer? Nobody at USC shook my hand, even after I introduced myself...</p>

<p>I love both schools very very very much and I am extremely frustrated about choosing the right college. I live in LA county and I cannot wait to leave HS!!! I would really appreciate any opinion that you have, especially if you have visited both Cal and USC.</p>

<p>Have a nice day!
I am visiting USC again on the 26th for the Spring Admit Orientation</p>

<p>“I felt inferior because the majority of the student body is white and A&F beautiful. As a short and skinny Asian, I was scared to look at people in the face”</p>

<p>You actually felt inferior? That is the saddest thing I have read on this website. I think you should seek some kind of counseling or therapy and I do not mean this as a joke.</p>

<p>I would go to Cal. Spring Admission is a sham and Cal is by far a superior academic institution.</p>

<p>you sound like you like USC more so I would go there.</p>

<p>i second vociferous…if you have that kind of problem you must not think very highly of yourself</p>

<p>SC has one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation. The last statistics I saw indicated less than half of the students are Caucasian.
Perhaps the best fit for this student might be a much smaller college than either of these two large universities.<br>
I agree this senior needs help in improving her self image.</p>

<p>I am a guy…</p>

<p>I would go to USC, if I were. </p>

<p>Berkeley is obviously way more prestigious than USC, but as an Asian, going to Berkeley wouldn’t really help you grow. At Berkely, there are multitude of Asian geeks like you and going there wouldn’t make you any different. You’re not going to add to Berkeley’s diversity anymore. Your classmates wouldn’t get as much from your contributions anymore. You will just be another smart Asian kid at Berkeley. </p>

<p>There are just tooooooooo many Asians at Berkeley and that’s obviously one of its weakest areas that needs to be addressed properly and immediately. </p>

<p>Again, go to USC. It’s a fantastic school, even though it does not have the prestige that Berkeley has.</p>

<p>It seems stupid to determine college choice by what you are adding to the community, considering that is the job of the admissions committee when they are selecting applicants. Go to whichever school you feel more comfortable at, not whichever one you can make more diverse. Of all the reasons to choose a college, your influence on its diversity should be near the bottom. In your case, I would recommend going to Berkeley, because USC’s social scene is still dominated by the people you feel uncomfortable around, you were admitted for fall semester at Berkeley, and it sounds like you want to leave LA County. USC is a continuation of LA County; Berkeley isn’t. Yes, USC’s education might be slightly more personalized (although I’m not sure in a school of 16,000 undergraduates and 33,000 total students if it is really that possible), but happiness is a factor in the educational experience, and you would be happier at Berkeley than you would be attending your other options.</p>

<p>USC has a large population of Asian students. You should be fine.</p>

<p>I would go with Cal. Cal is second only to MIT in Engineering…USC is not quite as good.</p>

<p>And what makes you think USC will offer a more personalized education? USC’s Engineering faculty is notoriously research-driven…no different from Cal for that matter. And if fitting in is something you care about, Cal seems like a no-brainer. You said it yourself, you have several friends there and everybody you met seemed nice. </p>

<p>Besides, I like San Francisco better than LA…but that’s just me.</p>

<p>

It won’t. </p>

<p>Most recent class size data:</p>

<p>Classes under 20 students:
USC: 63.6%
Berkeley: 61.6%</p>

<p>Classes over 50 students:
USC: 11.9%
Berkeley: 14.1%</p>

<p>IEOR Undergrad ranking:
Best Colleges Specialty Rankings: Undergraduate engineering specialties: Industrial / </p>

<p>1 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
2 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
3 Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN
4 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA
5 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA
6 Stanford University Stanford, CA
6 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA
8 Texas A&M University–College Station College Station, TX
9 Northwestern University Evanston, IL
10 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI
11 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
11 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
14 Ohio State University–Columbus Columbus, OH
15 North Carolina State University–Raleigh Raleigh, NC
16 University of Florida Gainesville, FL
17 Columbia University New York, NY
18 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ</p>

<p>Academically, this is a no brainer-Berkeley. As for there being “too many” Asians at any particular school, I remember some guy in Germany saying there were too many Jews around some years back. That is a very troublesome line of thought and I find it offensive (and no I am not Asian).</p>

<p>I would actually go to Cal simply for academic reasons, but I think you need to get over your inferiority complex, it is really very unfortunate.</p>

<p>You are a Spring admit to USC and Fall admit to UCB. So I would go to UCB. Besides I don’t think USC has IEOR.
BTW, there are tons of Asians at USC when I visited.</p>

<p>Don’t listen to anyone else on this forum.
Go to where you feel MOST comfortable. End of story.</p>